Brecksville Dam targeted for demolition; fishing, Cuyahoga River water quality expected to improve

BRECKSVILLE, Ohio - A plan to enhance fish and other wildlife in a cleaner Cuyahoga River may soon come to fruition with the removal of the last impediment to a free-flowing river from Akron to Lake Erie.

An environmental assessment of the Brecksville Dam is expected to be completed by the end of this month, followed by a public comment period in September, with a possible demolition date in 2017 or 2018.

The conservation plan will improve water quality, oxygen levels and river flow, while providing an inviting habitat for fish species not seen upriver in decades, such as walleye, Northern pike, steelhead trout, white bass, and potentially even sturgeon, said Phil Hillman, District Three fish management supervisor for the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

"Removing the dam changes the whole complexion of the river," Hillman said. "The fish will be more scattered, rather than bunching up above and below the dam with no way of migrating past it."

This comes as bad news for some fishermen, who would prefer to relax while casting their lines into pools at the base of the dam where lunkers lurk, Hillman said. But he considers the environmental benefits well worth the trade-off.

"It changes the equation for the fishermen," Hillman said. "The water is going to be cleaner, but the fishermen are going to have to be more active, moving around to find the fish. To me, that's some of the fun of fishing rivers, exploring the areas where the fish actually reside."

The eight-foot tall, 183-foot long dam spans the river at the Station Road Bridge Trailhead of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park's Towpath Trail. The Route 82 Bridge looms high overhead.

By removing the dam, state environmentalists would take a major step toward returning the Cuyahoga to a fully functioning riparian ecosystem, flowing freely from its source in Geauga County to its mouth at Lake Erie, and opening traditional fish spawning grounds that have been blocked for more than a century.

The dam demolition plan became feasible after engineers devised ways to retain water in the historic Ohio & Erie Canal, part of the final leg of the corridor carved from 1825-1832. That stretch of the canal, connecting Cleveland and Akron, is the longest remaining section of the 308-mile-long waterway and a National Historic Landmark.

After the dam is removed, construction crews will install a system to funnel as much as 13 million gallons a day from the river into the adjacent canal, either by pumping or diverting the water with a parallel wall upstream. The National Park Service and the state historic preservation office hoped to retain the watered canal for cultural interpretation purposes from that era of history.

The dam offers no flood protection, said Bill Zawiski, an environmental supervisor with the Ohio EPA in Twinsburg. It was destroyed in the 1913 flood and rebuilt in 1951 with the sole purpose of raising the water level so it could be diverted into the canal for use by the steel mills. It is no longer needed for industrial purposes, Zawiski said.

"It's really just a wall in the river," Zawiski said. "It's not a happy place for fish or bugs."

Removing the dam is not expected to be complicated or expensive, he said. Akron and Cleveland will share the cost of the project, both of which signed federal consent decrees that require them to contribute money. The rest will come from the U.S. and Ohio EPAs, he said.

"Once you remove the dam the river should heal itself," Zawiski said. "It will immediately return to a free-flowing state, the sediment will blow out in about a year, and the habitat restoration and plants will begin growing along the banks."

Pollution-control projects already have brought major improvements to water quality along stretches of the Cuyahoga and its tributaries, Zawiski said, with the return of healthy fish populations and several pollution-sensitive species, such as walleye, on a par with the Chagrin and Grand rivers.

Farther upriver, dams in Kent, Munroe Falls and Cuyahoga Falls have already been removed or modified in recent years.

Meanwhile, a more complicated plan is taking shape to remove the 57-foot-high Ohio Edison Gorge Dam between Akron and Cuyahoga Falls in the Gorge Metro Park. That job could cost up to $70 million, but would mark the removal of the last dam on the river.

About 1,100 dams have been removed nationwide, but 80,000 remain, according to American Rivers, a nonprofit organization.